November, 1910. 



349 



American Vae Journal 



fine Italian strains work in glass exhibi- 

 tion hives, where you may watch their 

 admirable Mndiistry and note the re- 

 sults, see the cells built, the honey 

 stored away and the young fed. He has 

 hives in a long row under a special 

 shed built for them, hives under trees 

 about the place, a hive at the head of 

 the stairs in liis house, three in the at- 

 tic and during a part of the field-day 

 at least, he had a hive in his hat. This 

 is not the customary joke about bees 

 in the bonnet, cither. It was a real hive 

 of real bees, a small hive, to be sure, 

 in a somewhat enlarged hat. A certain 

 humorous wliimsicality is always a part 

 of the field-day exercises of this organi- 

 zation and adds a zest of liilarity to the 

 otherwise earnest work of tlie meeting. 

 To sec and hear during the half-hour 

 of relaxation — the precise president 

 ])laying "Silver Threads Among the 

 Gold" as a cornet solo, the host accom- 

 panying on a low-voiced trombone, 

 while the bees flew busily in and out of 

 liis hat, was worth coming miles to see, 

 and it is no wonder that the attendance 

 was large from all over the State. 



Bee-keepers are as busy and as much 

 to the point as the bees they keep, and 

 after a day spent with a grove full of 

 them one buzzes back to the home hive 

 fairly laden with the honey of concen- 

 trated information. Notable speakers ad- 

 dressed the gathering, among them Pro- 

 fessor William P. Brooks, director of 

 the Massachusetts Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station; Burton N. Gates, Ph. 

 D., State inspector of apiaries; and E. 

 Clinton Britton, president of the so- 

 ciety. After listening to these and the 

 volley fire of keen questions and equal- 

 ly keen replies that were scattered 

 through the addresses as well as fol- 

 lowing them, seeing hives, the bees in 

 full war-paint and with their work- 

 ing clothes all on, disjointed and their 

 various bones, at least their frames, 

 separated and passed from hand to hand 

 without the workers missing stroke or 

 the fighters getting one in on the as- 

 sembly, one comes away greatly im- 

 pressed w'ith the intelligence and kindly 

 spirit of both parties to the transaction. 



Busy Bee-Keepers of Massachusetts. 



Bee-keeping is on the increase in Mas- 

 sachusetts, both as a matter of profit- 

 able lalwr and as a hobby. There is the 

 Western Massachusetts Bee Keepers As- 

 sociation, the Hampshire and Hampden 

 Counties .Association, the Worcester 

 County Association, and so it goes, new 

 societies interested in the gentle art 

 growing up, as it were, over night, all 

 proof of a renewed and progressive in- 

 terest in bees and their work. The larg- 

 est apiary in the State contains 200 

 colonies, and is managed more for the 

 sale of working colonies than for the 

 honey produced, though this is by no 

 means an unimportant item. Where bees 

 are kept with a view of producing honey. 

 35 to 40 pounds per hive is considered 

 a good yearly average, but if you can 

 add to the value of that from five to 

 twenty-five dollars for the sale of col- 

 onies the earned increment per hive 

 increases. H you can cajole your bees 

 into producing a hundred dollar queen 

 occasionally, that little helps. There are 



queens that are valued at that, though 

 the ordinary queen sells for far less, the 

 traffic in queens being in a limited way 

 a mail-order proposition. You send 

 your check and get your qiieen snugly 

 tucked away in a cage, coming perhaps 

 from half way round the world. Ihen 

 with proper introduction to the hive the 

 work of honey-producing goes steadily 

 on while a new and improved strain of 

 workers is bred. 



Bees in the western part of the State 

 are kept in the main for the honey that 

 they produce, the Berkshires and par- 

 ticularly the western slope of this range, 

 being equal to New York or Vermont 

 in the quality of its "pasturage," New 

 York and Vermont, all things consid- 

 ered, being among the best bee States 

 in the Union. 



One prime reason for this honey- 

 producing excellence of this region is 

 the prevalence and luxuriance of the 

 white clover, in many ways the most 

 desirable plant to have in the neigh- 

 borhood of an apiary. In the eastern 

 part of the State while the honey pro- 

 duced is an itnportant item and the 

 pasturage as a rule good the best op- 

 portunities for professional bee-keeping 

 come from the demand for bees by 

 the greenhouse men, particularly those 

 who have large cucumber houses. In 

 winter the fertilization of the blossoms 

 and the consequent success of the crop 

 require bees, and one or inore hives 

 are placed in each cucumber house 

 where the bees work all winter, to be 

 discarded in the spring, usually worn 

 out and worthless. 



The Amateur need not be Financially 

 "Stung." 



The amateur who wishes to begin bee- 

 keeping with one colony or more need 

 not be discouraged by cramped quar- 

 ters, or the fact that he does not dwell 

 among fields of white clover and buck- 

 wheat. Bees, as we saw at the bee- 

 keepers' meeting, will do business from 

 an attic or a hat. All that they want 

 is a chance to fly freely from their hive 

 to honey-producing plants. Strange to 

 say, the country itself is not a first re- 

 quisite. One bee-e.xpert found the roof 

 of a brick block in the heart of the city 

 of Washington a profitable place for 

 his apiary, the bees finding pasturage 

 among the linden trees and other shade 

 trees with which the city streets are 

 lined, and on the sweet clover which 

 grows there plentifully in all waste 

 places and by roadsides. A bee ranges 

 in her daily quest for honey a distance 

 of 3 to 4 miles and knows her busi- 

 ness thoroughly. Turn her loose and 

 she will finij honey if there is any to 

 be had within the score or so square 

 miles which lie in reach around her 

 hive. 



Much careful investigation has been 

 made by bee-keepers and scientific ento- 

 mologists as to what constitutes the 

 best plants for bee-pasturage. Under- 

 stand, no bee-keeper can afford to plant 

 crops for his bees alone. But if he is 

 also engaged in practical farming he 

 will, in making choice of plants for 

 other purposes, plant those which are 

 most desirable for his bees, other things 

 being equal. Among these the clovers 

 hold first place. The bee-keeper whose 



bees range over broad mowing fields 

 and pastures in which the wise farmers 

 have encouraged the clover should get 

 large returns from his bees. White 

 clover honey has the highest reputa- 

 tion in the market, especially where it 

 is sold in the comb. So far as quan- 

 tity goes buckwheat is a famous honey- 

 producer but tlie honey from this plant 

 is dark in color, and while its flavor is 

 excellent the effect on the eye is dis- 

 couraging. Hence honey brought by 

 the bees from buckwheat is usually ex- 

 tracted, the honey and the wa.x being 

 sold separately. 



Among trees the basswood or linden 

 yields a honey, white, well-flavored and 

 wholesome. In localities where these 

 trees have been planted for shade, bees 

 do well. Raspberry honey is another 

 especially fine variety, and in places 

 where a large acreage of these small 

 fruits is planted for market, bees thrive 

 and the keepers thrive with them. It 

 has been said that an acre of raspber- 

 ries will keep a hundred colonies of 

 bees busy for weeks. But • a lack of 

 any or all these plants in the neighbor- 

 hood need not discourage the prospect- 

 ive bee-keeper. Nearly all plants yield 

 honey and there is a constant succes- 

 sion of bloom in Massachusetts from 

 the spring Mayflowers to the autumn 

 asters and goldenrod, among all of 

 which the bees find work and reward. 

 So far as pasturage goes almost any- 

 one may keep bees. You may trust 

 them to find it, nor are they dismayed 

 by trespass signs or fences however 

 high. 



The Best Bees in the Business. 



The first honey-bees were introduced 

 into this country from Europe some 

 time after the first settlements, nobody 

 knows just how long. Something over 

 a hundred years ago bees had discov- 

 ered the Mississippi river, and 50 years 

 later the first colonies had reached the 

 Pacific coast. In the earliest years 

 the parent stock was the black bee of 

 Germany. These bees were no doubt 

 e-xcellent for pioneers. Like the early 

 settlers they carry their weapons with 

 them and use them at short notice. 

 The black bee is always ready to cure 

 your rheumatism and suspects all 

 strangers of having it. Usually each 

 colony posts sentinels which fly to meet 

 and inspect you. Then is the time to 

 be sedate and commit no overt act, 

 else you get that hypodermic applica- 

 tion of rheumatism cure whether you 

 need it or not. 



Black bees are good honey-makers, 

 and are vigorous and prolific, but their 

 readiness to fight at the drop of a hat 

 is causing them to be discarded in fa- 

 vor of gentler varieties. For this rea- 

 son, especially, it is best for the be- 

 ginner to start with a colony of the 

 gentler varieties. There are many af 

 these, Caucasians from the Caucasus,. 

 Carniolans from an Austrian province,. 

 Cyprians from the island of Cyprus,. 

 Syrians or "Holy Land bees," and It— 

 alians which were first introduced af 

 ter the black bees, and to this day are- 

 most kept and held in the highest es- 

 teem. These, if handled wisely axidj 

 tenderly, rarely sting anyone. 



.\t the bee-meeting hives of Italians 



